Random musings on history, politics, and more

Archive for February 24th, 2009

About a week ago, I posted a kind of offhand remark about how the “hackability” of non-wireless network hardware seemed to be largely under-explored, unlike the hundreds, literally, of wireless routers that have been hacked and modded. I pointed to obsolete – or at least “unsupported” – hardware as a potential untapped source of hackable, moddable devices for the cheap and curious. One of the devices I specifically pointed at was the Cisco Content Engine CE-507, a long-unsupported rackmount box that’s regularly available on eBay for $30 or less, and whose potential is largely unexplored.

Well, to make a long story short, a friend who reads this site dropped me an email, offering a well-used CE-507, free…Read the rest of this entry »

Minneapolis isn’t Baghdad or Kabul, but it is apparently being rocked by explosions on an all-too-frequent basis. They seem to be centered around the Mississippi River, and while authorities can explain away some of them, the cause of many remains a mystery. It’s been going on for a while, and while it – thankfully – doesn’t seem to be terrorism related, it’s still a bit depressing that authorities remain stumped.

My money is on people making dry-ice-bombs and throwing ’em in the river – bottle floats downriver for a few minutes, explodes, and all the evidence, such as it is, sinks out of sight, leaving nothing for authorities to spot. More annoyingly, that kind of bomb doesn’t produce a flash, or even a cloud of smoke – just a boom.

Still, I’m kind of impressed by the amount of effort the MPD are evidently putting into finding the source of these explosions, and a bit perplexed why the city’s much-hyped array of accoustic “gunshot” detectors apparently aren’t even able to help pinpoint where the explosions are happening. Better living through technology? Maybe someday, in Minneapolis – but not, apparently, today…

Published in:
Geekiness, General, Security|
on February 24th, 2009 |Comments Off on Explosions in the Night, Perplexing Experts